This invention relates to a compact, table-type food extruder used for offhand preparation of French fried potatoes or other snacks in fast-food restaurant chains, eating houses, stands of recreation grounds, beer halls, households, etc.
Conventionally, French fried potatoes are enjoying a large demand in the fast-food restaurant chains and other restaurants, etc. Especially, there has been an increasing demand for those fried potatoes which are prepared by mixing powdered potato mix with water, extruding the mixture into sticks by means of an extruding machine, and then frying the sticks of potato mix in a fryer. In response to such demand, table-type, handle-operated food extruding machines, called French fried potatoes extruders, have been developed and put to practical use.
These table-type food extruding machines, which are compact, light, and space-saving, can very easily be operated in any suitable places, such as shops, kitchens, etc. All these conventional machines of such type, however, are of a construction in which a pressing rod is lowered by handle operation with the aid of an entirely mechanical motion means, such as gears or link cams, thereby extruding molding food material (dough) in a drum. Therefore, the energy required for the handle operation is too great for a woman or child to cover. Further, because of their being food preparing machines, these prior art extruding machines do not allow a lubricant to be applied to their interlocking mechanical parts, so that they are liable to malfunction due to unsmooth operations. Moreover, these machines are not provided with any mechanism for regulating the handle stroke, so that it is difficult to adjust the extrusion length of food moldings when using molding plates with different shapes and different numbers of perforations for extrusion. Thus, the handle operation cannot help being delicate, depending entirely upon the operator's knack or tact.